Roman Catholic Church - Christian church headed by the pope, the bishop of Rome (see papacy and Peter, Saint). Its commonest title in official use is Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. "Roman Catholic" is a 19th-century British coinage and merely serves to distinguish that church from other churches that are "Catholic" (see catholic church). The term "Roman Church," when used officially, means only the archdiocese of Rome. Roman Catholics may be simply defined as Christians in communion with the pope.

Organization of the Church

There are within the church a number of rites, i.e., ancient, independent traditions of discipline and worship, differentiated through isolation (see also liturgy). Besides the Roman rite, to which the vast majority belong, there are among Catholics five Eastern rites, used by a number of communities (Eastern Catholics or Uniates; see patriarch). They are: the Byzantine (the rite also of the Orthodox Eastern Church, which is not in communion with Rome), to which belong many groups, including Melchites, Ruthenians, Romanians, and the Italo-Albanians of S Italy; the Antiochene (also the rite of the autonomous Jacobite Church), to which belong the Maronites, the Syrian Catholics, and the Malankarese of Malabar; the Alexandrian, to which belong the Catholic Copts and Ethiopians (see Copts); the Chaldaean (also the rite of the autonomous Nestorian Church), to which belong Chaldaean Catholics and Syro-Malabarese; and the Armenian (also the rite of the autonomous Armenian Church). These rites and communities have their own organizations under the pope and are protected from attempts to "Latinize" them. Best known, perhaps, of the non-Roman Western rites are the Ambrosian, the Dominican, and the Mozarabic.

Apart from the rites and foreign missions, the organization of the church is by diocese, the territory of a bishop. Important sees have archbishops, who often supervise neighboring, suffragan bishops. With certain restrictions, the pope names the bishops. Dioceses are made up of parishes, each of which has a church and a priest (the pastor). The pope controls bishops mainly by general legislation. His government, which is run by the cardinals living at Rome, is concerned with matters of wide significance, such as missions and relations with states (see also cardinal; papal election; Vatican).

Cutting across territorial lines are the religious orders of men and women; their field is monastic life, nonparish activities, and schools; they frequently run missions, hospitals, and colleges (see monasticism). Their members generally receive subsistence only. The parish clergy support themselves, often with salaries fixed by the bishop. Most of the clergy are priests (see orders, holy); they are trained (usually from four to six years) in seminaries maintained by the bishops, the orders, or the Vatican. Members of the clergy do not marry, unless they are parish priests of Eastern rites.

There is no churchwide census, and there are various criteria for determining membership. However, the Roman Catholics in the world are estimated to be about half the total number of Christians and make the church one of the largest religions in the world. In 1996, there were 61,208,000 Roman Catholics in the United States.

Beliefs, Doctrines, and Practices

To belong to the church one must accept as factually true the gospel of Jesus as handed down in tradition and as interpreted by the bishops in union with the pope. Fundamental in this divine tradition is the Bible, its text determined and disseminated by the church. Adherents must also accept the church as possessing the fullness of revelation, and the church, according to the Roman Catholic catechism, is the only Christian body that is "one, holy, catholic [universal], and apostolic."

The doctrine of apostolic succession is one of the keystones of the Catholic faith; it holds that the pope (the vicar of Christ) and the bishops have in varying degrees the spiritual authority Jesus assigned to his apostles. The voice of the pope, either alone or in conjunction with his bishops in council, is regarded as infallible when speaking on matters of faith and morals taught in common with the bishops (see infallibility). Many features of the traditional teaching (dogma) have been analyzed and restated, by the councils and by great theologians (see council, ecumenical; creed; Thomas Aquinas, Saint; Trent, Council of; Vatican Council, First; Vatican Council, Second).

The chief teachings of the Catholic church are: God's objective existence; God's interest in individual human beings, who can enter into relations with God (through prayer); the Trinity; the divinity of Jesus; the immortality of the soul of each human being, each one being accountable at death for his or her actions in life, with the award of heaven or hell; the resurrection of the dead; the historicity of the Gospels; and the divine commission of the church. In addition the Roman Catholic Church stresses that since the members, living and dead, share in each other's merits, the Virgin Mary and other saints and the dead in purgatory are never forgotten (see church; saint).

The church is seen as having from God a system of conveying God's grace direct to humanity (see sacrament). The ordinary Catholic frequents the sacraments of penance (required at least once a year) and the Eucharist (required once every Easter time; see also sin). The Eucharist is the center of public worship, often embellished with solemn ceremony (see Mass).

Private prayer is also regarded as essential; contemplation is the ideal (see mysticism), and all believers are expected to devote some time to prayer that is more than requesting favors. Different methods of prayer are recommended (see rosary; Saint Ignatius of Loyola; Thomas à Kempis). Self-renunciation is a necessary part of prayer (see fasting; Lent).

The church teaches that the main motive for ethical behavior is the love of God. Nothing that God has created is evil in itself, but evil use may be made of it. The doctrine concerning persons not Catholic is that since God affords each human being light sufficient to attain salvation, all will be saved who persevere in what they believe to be good, regardless of ignorance. Only those will be damned who persist in what they know to be wrong; among these are persons who resist the church when they know it to be the one, true church.

History

For the first centuries of the church's history, see Christianity.

The Church in the Middle Ages

From the 9th cent. to 1520 the church was simply Western Europe taken in its religious aspect, and no clear line divided spiritual from temporal life. In the West (unlike the East) the religious organization was free for centuries from grave interference from civil rulers. Charlemagne was an exception, but his influence was benign. In the chaotic 9th and 10th cent. every part of the church organization, including the papacy, became the prey of the powerful.

The restoration of order began in monasteries; from Cluny a movement spread to reform Christian life (see Cluniac order). This pattern of decline of religion followed by reform is characteristic of the history of the Roman Catholic Church; the reform goals have varied, but they have included the revival of spiritual life in society and the monasteries, and the elimination of politics from the bishops' sphere and venality from the papal court. The next reform (11th cent.) was conducted by popes, notably St. Gregory VII and Urban II. Part of this movement was to exclude civil rulers from making church appointments—the first, bold chapter in a 900-year battle between the church and the "Catholic princes" (see church and state; investiture).

The 12th cent. was a time of great intellectual beginnings. St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians revived practical mystical prayer. Gratian founded the systematic study of the canon law, and medieval civil law began its development. This double study was to provide weapons to both sides in the duel between the extreme papal claims of Innocent III and Innocent IV, and the antipapal theories of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Also in the 12th cent., Peter Abelard and other thinkers pioneered in rationalist theology.

From early rationalist theology and from the teachings of Aristotle developed the philosophies and theologies of St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas (see also scholasticism). This was the work of the new 13th-century universities; to them, and to the friars—the Dominicans and Franciscans—who animated them, passed the intellectual leadership held by the monasteries. St. Dominic's order was formed to preach against the Albigenses (a campaign that also produced the Inquisition). The vast popular movement of St. Francis was a spontaneous reform contemporary with the papal reform of the Fourth Lateran Council. The 13th cent. saw also the flowering of Gothic architecture.

The contest between church and state continued, ruining the Hohenstaufen dynasty and, in the contest between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France, bringing the papacy to near ruin. Then came the Avignon residence—the so-called Babylonian captivity of the papacy (1309–78), a time of good church administration, but of excessive French influence over papal policy. Except for isolated voices, such as that of St. Catherine of Siena, the church seemed to lose energy, and a long period devoid of reform began. A long-enduring schism and a series of ambitious councils (see Schism, Great) involved most churchmen in a welter of politics and worldliness.

There were popular religious movements, characterized by revivalism and a tendency to minimize the sacraments (along with church authority); they encouraged private piety, and one group produced the